By Fred Topel

When I became a journalist, it was a dream to be able to meet the filmmakers who inspired me as a movie-loving kid. After 12 years in the industry, it’s even more fulfilling to follow these filmmakers as they continue to influence our lives with the stories they tell.

Wes Craven is on his third or fourth cycle. For me, A Nightmare on Elm Street opened the world of dreams and overcoming your fears through Freddy Krueger. Also, The People Under the Stairs unleashed all the creativity that could exist buried in a dangerous suburban house.

The generation before me got to know Craven from his brutal thrillers Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes, both of which Craven has produced remakes for in the last decade. The Scream series was already impacting horror fans younger than me, but I certainly enjoyed the way its characters knew the rules of the horror movies in which they were stuck, and it didn’t help them much.

Scre4m is already addressing a further generation by incorporating cell phones and internet technology, and discussing the rules of horror movie remakes. For the latest film, I once again got a chance to chat with my creative guru.

Read our exclusive interview with Wes Craven on SuicideGirls.com.

Bentley Suicide in Sparkling

• INTO: Girly girl stuff.
• NOT INTO: Flying and hot food/drinks.
• MAKES ME HAPPY: Genuine kindness, puppies, hiking, cooking/baking, cleaning, the occasional vodka beverage.
• MAKES ME SAD: Running out of hot bath water, weather over 80 degrees.
• VICES: American Spirits.

Get to know Bentley better over at SuicideGirls.com!

by Greg Palast

The untold story of the sources of the loot controlled by Paul “The Vulture” Singer, Ken Langone and the Kochs – and why they need to buy the White House.

Hedge fund magnate Paul Singer likes to breakfast on decayed carcasses. What he chews down is sickening, but just as nausea-inducing are his new tablemates: billionaires Ken Langone and the Koch Brothers, Charles and David.

Singer has called together the billionaire boys’ club for the purpose of picking our next president for us. The old-fashioned way of choosing presidents – democracy and counting ballots and all that – has never been a favorite of this pack. I can tell you that from my investigations of each of these gentlemen for The Guardian. When the Statue of Liberty has nightmares, she dreams that these guys will combine to seize America via a cash-and-carry coup d’état.

Welcome to the nightmare. Singer, Langone and the Kochs last month decided to elect Chris Christie for us. The New Jersey governor’s pseudocampaign went belly up before it began. But that’s beside the point. Now that the Supreme Court has effectively ended campaign finance limits and allowed secretive contributions through “corporations,” this new combine of the ultrawealthy should not be viewed as just a political threat to the Democrats, but as a threat to democracy.

Let me give you a rundown from my sulphur-scented files on these men who would be king-makers.

Billionaire 1: Ken Langone

Langone likes to be known as the founder of Home Depot, just your local tool guy in a blue apron with a little bag of screws.

But he was also the man, with his right-wing partners, behind Database Technologies (DBT). It was in my first investigation of Langone in 2000 that I discovered that DBT had created a list of several thousand “felons” – most of them black, all of them innocent, all of them purged from Florida’s voter rolls by DBT’s client, Katherine Harris. And Langone’s company knew exactly what was going on.

What qualifies Langone to pick our president? In his own words: “I’m nuts; I’m rich.”

Billionaires 2 and 3: David and Charles Koch

You think you’ve read all about the billionaire brothers. Well, there’s more:

In 1996, an FBI agent, Richard Elroy, told my team that oil had been pilfered from the Osage Indian reservation in Oklahoma. He and other G-men filmed the filch-theft, say witnesses, personally ordered by Charles Koch. A few barrels here, a few barrels there.

It all added up: to about a billion and a half dollars in looted petroleum, says one expert, a third of the Koch fortune at the time. David and Charles shared in the booty via their private company, Koch Industries.

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by Blogbot

What Suicide Girls are putting on – and taking off…

Regardless of the season, corsets are a cinch when it comes to sexy and sensual (un)dressing.

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By Nicole Powers

Scroobius Pip went out one day, and made a record for people to play. Then all the beasts in the world came round, thanks to his killer wit and rhymes so sound. The Nyan cat, the dog and the kangaroo, with “Thou Shalt Always Kill” the YouTube massive he did woo. Then the wolf he howled, the horse he neighed, “I’m releasing a second solo record” the Pip brayed. And when the Pip began to roar, there never was heard such a noise before. And every beast he stood on the tip, to peruse a video of the Scroobius Pip. At last they said to the Pip “By far,
 you’re the wisest beast! You know you are!” SG got close to Scroobius Pip to say, ‘Tell us all about yourself we pray. For as yet we can’t make out in the least, if you’re punk or hip-hop, or poet or beast.” The Scroobius Pip looked vaguely round, and hollered these words with a rumbling sound: “Chippetty flip, Flippetty chip, my only name is the Scroobius Pip.”

In truth, he may not have said “Chippetty flip” or “Flippetty chip” – but here’s what went down when SuicideGirls spoke to the Pip…

Read our exclusive interview with Scroobius Pip on SuicideGirls.com.

Pthalo Suicide in Afternoon Delight

• INTO: Sex, tattoos, piercings, cuddling, gaming, music, and art.
• MAKES ME HAPPY: Puppies, kitties, traveling, drawing, receiving mail, photoshoots.
• MAKES ME SAD: Violence.
• HOBBIES: Listening to music, playing bass/acoustic guitar, drawing/painting, taking pictures, gaming, wasting away on the laptop.
• 5 THINGS I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT: Makeup, laptop, text messaging, my car, a job.
• I SPEND MOST OF MY FREE TIME: On this here laptop.

Get to know Pthalo better over at SuicideGirls.com!

by Steven-Elliot Altman (SG Member: Steven_Altman)

Our Fiction Friday serialized novel, The Killswitch Review, is a futuristic murder mystery with killer sociopolitical commentary (and some of the best sex scenes we’ve ever read!). Written by bestselling sci-fi author Steven-Elliot Altman (with Diane DeKelb-Rittenhouse), it offers a terrifying postmodern vision in the tradition of Blade Runner and Brave New World…

By the year 2156, stem cell therapy has triumphed over aging and disease, extending the human lifespan indefinitely. But only for those who have achieved Conscientious Citizen Status. To combat overpopulation, the U.S. has sealed its borders, instituted compulsory contraception and a strict one child per couple policy for those who are permitted to breed, and made technology-assisted suicide readily available. But in a world where the old can remain vital forever, America’s youth have little hope of prosperity.

Jason Haggerty is an investigator for Black Buttons Inc, the government agency responsible for dispensing personal handheld Kevorkian devices, which afford the only legal form of suicide. An armed “Killswitch” monitors and records a citizen’s final moments — up to the point where they press a button and peacefully die. Post-press review agents — “button collectors” — are dispatched to review and judge these final recordings to rule out foul play.

When three teens stage an illegal public suicide, Haggerty suspects their deaths may have been murders. Now his race is on to uncover proof and prevent a nationwide epidemic of copycat suicides. Trouble is, for the first time in history, an entire generation might just decide they’re better off dead.

(Catch up with the previous installments of Killswitch – see links below – then continue reading after the jump…)

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